My Sophmore marching season
by basscchich2004
Summary: A contest by contest view of my second season as a valley marchmaster. Full of excitment!


The marching season  
  
Background about the season  
  
Six bass clarinets. Mike, Katie, Audery, Shannon, Suzanne, and me.  
  
We go to Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa. A big music school.  
  
Our show was "Odyssey of the Far East."  
  
Lin-Mar/Marion  
  
For the first competition of the year, we had practice that morning. I was long, and it sucked. Then we loaded the charters. It was a two-hour trip to Marion, Iowa where we had two contests that day. I rode a bus with my friends. We had interesting people around us. Some weird juniors, and this guy that my best friend had a crush on. Long bus ride there. Right when we got there, we went and changed into our uniforms. WE warmed up, which was long and painful. Then we marched over to the field, and went on. We gave what I think was a decent performance. We got off, got comments from our judge. Suzanne kept saying to Shannon and I that everyone sucked and that we were going to lose. That pissed us off a bit. We sat in the stands, watched to one band that was left. It was nerve-racking because this was the only contest we lost at the previous year. Then they started saying the scores. First with 2A, then 3A. Then onto 4A. We weren't fifth, fourth or third, which was predictable. A bunch of us held hands, a tradition that I had started the year before. Then second place. "Second place goes to. well I don't remember the band name, but it wasn't us. The upper classmen mad sure that we shut up, because it was rude if we cheered. Besides, we could have got last. Then the announcer came back on the intercom. "First place goes to WDM Valley" We screamed, did the celebrated the win all that. Then Shannon and I hunted Suzanne down and made her take back the comments she had said. We changed back into our clothes, and got back onto the buses. We were watching happy Gilmore on the way up, and they started it again as we headed towards downtown Marion. I remember there was the part where Happy and Bob Barker fight, and Happy goes, the price is wrong, bitch. I love that movie by the way. Anyway we park at our usually spot, right by the McDonalds. We go and watch some bands, eat, all that. We had a couple hours of free time. We were to report back at about 8:30. We did. We had to change, tune, get speeches, all of that. We can see lightning in the background. We get into groups and have to practice this one part. We do horns up, and wham. Shannon hits her knee hard with her bass clarinet. She couldn't walk. Later we found out that she bruised her knee to the bone. She was alright for the next week. We march over. We waited for our turn to go on. It starts to rain. Nothing too big. We get into the formation and March onto the backside lines. It starts down pouring. The band directors have us take shelter, since it would last about five minutes. When it is finished we went back and lined up. Then our band director yells, "we aren't going on. Too much lightning. We all are disappointed. Then we started walking back to the bus, and we can see that the lightning is pretty bad, so we quit complaining. They had us change. It starts raining again. It got really bad. All of a sudden someone yells, "Leave everything here and run to the buses!" I was with no shoes and in a wet uniform. I brought my instrument because, well I don't know. By the time I got to the bus, I was soaked. Everyone was soaked. I went into the bathroom, put on some dry clothes, and put my wet uniform in the overhead compartment. The bus ride home was a long one. It also stank. Wet polyester. Not a good thing. When we got back to Valley, everyone got their uniforms straightened out (a bunch was mixed together), people found their instruments and headed home. I stayed and found Shannon to see how she was. Then I went home. I got home at two o'clock Sunday morning. The first weekend of the season was over.  
  
  
  
So that was the first weekend of four. Exciting huh? Please leave a review. I will put the next one up soon. Another exciting one. I get into a big fight, Audrey almost gets killed. My uniform breaks. 


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